Coming Home to the Four Streets by Nadine Dorries (books that read to you .txt) 📗

play by Malachi Malone, the owner of the only ball, was up at the wasteland. Every boy except for little Paddy who had again made excuses to fall behind his siblings and almost had to leave Max under the bed in his box due to Peggy’s watchful eye and the fact that his father was lying in his bed, refusing to rise.

Little Paddy had managed to take some crumbs from the bottom of the empty biscuit tin, a few sultanas, too precious to throw out and too few to serve any purpose, from the press and stole Max away with only seconds to spare before Peggy caught him. Peggy was at the kitchen table, the thick stub of a pencil in one hand. A scrap of paper lay on the table before her and a letter that she hurriedly shoved back into an official-looking brown envelope. She looked up as her son came into the room.

‘Paddy, what the hell is wrong with you? Get yourself out of the door, right now. They’ve all gone out to play and you’re supposed to be looking after them. Get up there before Malachi starts another fight with your brothers. Go on, get out.’

Little Paddy had slipped Max into his coat pocket and, as he wriggled in there, little Paddy, his heart beating wildly, placed his hands over the outside to conceal Max from Peggy’s view. ‘Mam, I’m only here because I want to help you. Da says he’s not getting up today, that his back is bad. He said would you take him a cuppa tea up and I have to go and get him an ounce of Old Holborn from Simpsons in the parade.’

Peggy narrowed her eyes. ‘Did he now? With what, may I ask? Does he think I have a magic pot in the outhouse or a fecking tree in the yard that grows ten-shilling notes for leaves?’ Peggy’s voice was rising, but she lacked her usual energy and suddenly the heat left her face. She passed the back of her hand across her brow and said, ‘Paddy, you need to get out. My nerves can’t stand anyone around today. Go on, get out. Forget your da and the tobacco, unless I’ve not heard and Simpsons are giving it away for free now.’

Peggy pushed the chair back and stood up straight with her hand in the middle of her lower back. Little Paddy saw her wince with pain as he stepped closer to deliver the rest of the message from his father.

‘Da also said to say his back is really bad, and he said the smokes help him, Ma…’

Peggy looked straight at her son and her eyes, for a brief moment, seemed far away.

‘Is that what he said? Well, he should try having my back for a day. Funny how his only lasts until opening time at the Anchor, isn’t it? Your father makes an amazing recovery then, every afternoon. Must be a miracle that. Don’t you worry about your da, or his baccy, leave him to me, Paddy.’

Peggy’s eyes softened as she looked down at her son. Not blessed with a daughter to help share the load, she often felt resentful towards those neighbours who did. The thought of Deirdre Malone, from Tipperary of all places, blessed with a firstborn like Mary, filled her with a burning sense of injustice. What was the Holy Mother thinking, leaving her like this, broke and with the worst case of fibroids the doctor at St Angelus had ever come across in a woman her age? With only boys she couldn’t even get out to work because there would be no one to look after the little ones while she was gone.

‘You gave Maura three daughters,’ she often said to the statue of Mary in church and then moved swiftly into the confessional, having coveted what another woman had, a woman who acted like a saint towards her at that. And then Maura’s Kitty died, breaking all of their hearts and Angela, the second born stepped into her place. It was as if God knew Maura would require a daughter in reserve and had then provided for the Dohertys a second time, with the hugest windfall they never knew was coming from their surprise relatives in America.

‘If that isn’t proof that wearing your shoe leather out running up in and out of St Cuthbert’s in the name of religious observance delivers you the good life and a full purse, I don’t know what is,’ she had grumbled to big Paddy on more than one occasion before Kitty had died. But the Dohertys had paid a terrible price and now little Paddy stood before her with his pleading eyes, anxious expression and the winsome smile that made her heart melt and flip from despair to gratitude. She had her little Paddy and for that she was grateful, most of the time.

‘Go on, Paddy, get out before one of your brothers walks in here screaming with a black eye. Haven’t I enough on my plate to be dealing with, without another argument with Deirdre Malone to add to the list?’ She picked up a decidedly dirty dishcloth and began wiping down the kitchen table, wincing with each outward stretch as little Paddy stood, frozen in a no man’s land between his mother’s despair and his father’s ire. And he had more to say…

‘Do we have enough money for the rent, Ma?’

Peggy, about to sit back down, stilled; his words hung in the air. He had been worrying about the rent for days. He knew exactly what she was doing when she sat at the table with the stubby pencil and he always checked on a Friday night when he arrived home from school. The rent book was kept in the press, in the little drawer under the bread crock, and little Paddy would slip it out, look for the ink tick in the box next to the date and if it was there, breathe a sigh